"Too late for what?"
But the stranger fell silent. Words had power. She had said enough.
"You are not a war host," the older voice said. Another form separated itself from the shadows by the simple expedient of motion. She wore a heavy robe, and a veil covered her face.
"No," Jewel replied, cautious now.
"Then if you cannot summon an army from the shadows of the Old Forest," the woman said, "leave Damar."
"Why?"
"Because an army is gathered here." The younger woman tried to regain control of the conversation. Jewel wondered idly if they were related. "And without an army, you cannot stand against it."
"We"ll take our chances." She turned to look at Avandar.
He met her gaze, and his frown reminded her of the desert. But he turned to the women. "How many?"
"We don"t know," the woman replied. "We don"t . . . count . . . that number of men."
The frown tightened.
"ATerafin," Kallandras said quietly. "With your permission?"
She nodded.
He approached the younger woman. Something about his silent, graceful movement was almost timid; his approach provoked no fear, caused no retreat. "I will not ask you to lead me, but tell me where these men can be found. Are they within Damar?"
She nodded. "Some hundred men came to this village four days past; they occupy the Western half of the village, but they do not stray to its borders, or we would not be here. The others came to the village this morning, in numbers; we believe they encamped a few miles outside of Damar until now."
"Where are they?"
"They are not hard to find: they line the banks of the Adane, and they cleave to their Tor. We can lead you some part of the way."
"Let us go," he said quietly, his voice carrying first to Lord Celleriant.
"Kallandras." Avandar lifted a hand.
The master bard turned.
"Remember: do not seek to speak with the wind"s voice."
He nodded.
"We desire your presence upon the field," Ser Amando said. He did not move from the vantage of height. "I, of course, have no doubt of your loyalty, but my allies are less trusting."
Alessandro said nothing. His hand did not stray from the hilt of his sword. He weighed the past against the future, aware of the edges of either. The Northern sword might not be a man"s weapon, but it was a weapon that served metaphor: it had no safe edge.
If he died here, he died. His heir was safe within Sarel.
"I have long valued the trust you have placed in me," he said, tone neutral. But he raised his head to meet the eyes of his kinsman. "I am a simple man," he continued, when Ser Amando nodded. "But the presence of the . . . river . . . does not seem to me a great indication of faith."
"But it is, Ser Alessandro. Were the bridges to remain standing, your men might be tempted to cross." He lifted a hand then, and held it aloft.
Lanterns began to converge upon the dais, revealing, as they burned, the metallic sheen of the men who carried them.
"You took the time to gather your forces," he continued. "You have always been a prudent man. But I, too, understand the value of preparation."
Alessandro gazed upon the forces of Manelo. They were greater in number than even his spies had indicated; he wondered-for he could not see beyond the press of men who now lined this open causeway-how many of these men served a different Tyr.
"I will not see your forces squandered needlessly," the Manelan Tor continued. "And I thought it best that they remain where they stand."
"I . . . see."
"They serve you," he continued. "They are not serafs. They are among the finest of the plainsmen. Lead them. Lead them to war against the enemy of the Tyr"agar, and the river will fall. You may rejoin your men when we have completed our negotiations here."
The double edge of the Northern blade was a metaphor, but so, too, the single edge of the South: Alessandro came to his grim decision.
He smiled. "Then, cousin, there is much to discuss. I have a visitor in Sarel who may be of interest to the Tyr"agar."
Kallandras chose his position with care. The packed straw and mud of road gave way to wider venues; he avoided these. The woman who traveled by his side had once again rejoined the shadows that kept her hidden; she had led him only as far as the light permitted.
But the light in the distance had suddenly grown bright; he could make out the individual flickers of lamp flame, and these were too numerous to count.
He whispered his thanks to the nameless stranger, but he did not wait for a response that he knew wouldn"t come; instead, he began to climb. The roofs of the houses were peaked, and sometimes the slope from the peak was a sharp decline of wood; they offered him little trouble.
In Averalaan, or in the streets of the Tor Leonne, he might make his way from roof to roof in silence, un.o.bserved by the men who stood sentry. Here, the gaps between buildings was large, and the finer homes were fenced in.
The fences were meant as decoration, he thought; as a way of demarking the subtle rank of lower clansmen. They were easily traversed; the Southerners valued privacy, and often built hedges against the fence wall to facilitate a sense of isolation.
He used both without pause, seeking safety and height.
The bard-born were gifted with voice, and with the voice. In the South, shorn of the t.i.tle of Northern diplomat, such a gift often meant death.
But in the South, so much did. What he had made of his gift would be at home, here.
He slipped over a balcony rail.
The distance was great, but the press of men who now spilled into the city streets leading toward the Adane were mercifully silent.
He waited a moment, crouching against the wooden rails, the smooth slats beneath his feet dry and cool. Then he rose again, ascending to roof; there were only three buildings in the town that were tall, and he had chosen the one closest to the water.
There was some risk in the choice, but there was always risk; he felt the pa.s.sing feet of men as clearly as he heard them. They patrolled, he thought, and this surprised him. He listened.
The wind"s voice was silent, but the voice of the water was the storm"s voice, chained to ground and unhappy in its captivity. The wall that rose from the riverbed towered above the tallest of the buildings, shimmering in moonlight. He could see the banks and the bed itself, shorn of the water"s movement: the river had gathered itself, condensing its strength and power in a stretch of wall that traveled a few miles, no more.
He felt its presence.
The ring on his hand glowed a pale white against the darker shade of night skin. He did not respond to the heat. Instead, he responded to the warning offered him by Avandar Gallais.
But not for the first time, he wondered what the cost of bearing this ring would ultimately be: for he disliked the water, with its blind, groping presence, its contained rage, its threat.
No; dislike was a petty word for something so visceral, and if the bards of Senniel were trained to song, they were trained to words as well. He did not name what he felt because it was so incongruous. He had been raised to think carefully, to deliberate quietly, even to kill dispa.s.sionately.
To kill in any other way was simply self-indulgent-a service performed for self and not for the Lady.
He shook his head, clearing it. He did not listen to the voices of the brothers he had lost, although they were there, as they had always been.
Instead, he looked. The army that stood at attention along the Adane broke in one place: its center. The streets of Damar led there, ending in a wide, semicircle which he knew must contain a fountain of contemplation. It was lost to the bodies of men, the gleam of armor. What now claimed the half circle"s heart, raised against the stones of this thoroughfare, was a long platform, and upon it, four men.
Ah, no, five.
The fifth, he recognized.
"This is true?" the strange Widan said sharply to the Tor"agnate of Manelo.
Alessandro did not dignify the question with a reply; the Tor"agnate dignified it with the simple narrowing of eyes.
The man in Widan"s robes noticed neither.
As if, Alessandro thought, he was ill-versed with the customs of the Court.
"Tor"agar," the man said, into a silence that grew in weight and meaning, "is it true that you have the girl in your domis?"
"If," Ser Alessandro said quietly, "the Widan accuses me of lying; perhaps there is no point to these negotiations."
They were not words that should have had to be spoken, but their truth was immutable. Not even Ser Amando, clearly annoyed by Ser Alessandro"s hesitance, could have been so careless with his words.
And still, it was the Widan whose thin composure gave way to anger, and there was no subtlety of expression, no stillness of gesture, no cutting silence in his display; his brows rose in obvious, and ugly, displeasure.
"You are in no position-"
"Widan," Ser Amando said, lifting a hand.
It would have silenced men of greater power. Indeed, it would have silenced the Tor"agar, had he been fool enough to require such reminder.
But the Widan"s mood was impenetrable. "Ser Amando," he said, his tone kin to growl, "we have no time for games or wordplay this eve. The Tyr"agar is already on the move, and he requires-"
"Yes?" Single word. The sharpest yet spoken.
No, thought Alessandro, as the Widan"s brows drew in, and the line of his beardless jaw tensed, this man was not of the South.
"He requires proof of the loyalty of his servants. The girl is of import to the Tyr"s war, as you well know. If she is, indeed, within Sarel, we must go to Sarel in force, now."
"She is one Serra," the Tor"agnate replied, his voice as cold as the sheathed blade by his side. "And we speak of things that matter to men."
"What she bears-what she is rumored to bear-matters greatly to men," the Widan snapped.
Had Ser Alessandro not felt silence prudent, he would have been enveloped by it regardless; he was-as much as any man of the Court could be-shocked.
But the measure of this Widan"s influence was made clear by the Tor"agnate"s next words.
"Do you think that the men of the South are not capable of confining a simple Serra?"
"They have failed in every attempt to confine her. They have failed in every attempt to find her on the road. She must have pa.s.sed through your Torrean, Ser Amando, but she pa.s.sed without note although your men were warned to watch the road against her coming."
Not even Ser Amando could ignore what had just been said, but again, to Ser Alessandro"s surprise, he made the attempt. "As the circ.u.mstance of her arrival has not-yet-been discussed, it cannot be said for certain that she pa.s.sed through the Torrean of Manelo. Widan." He gestured; one of his Toran stepped forward, pa.s.sing the Widan without so much as a glance of acknowledgment. His bearing was rigid with the anger that Ser Amando himself did not deign to express; his hand was upon the hilt of his sword.
But he was Toran, and if his lord chose to take-to acknowledge-no insult in what was obviously insulting, he could not publicly attack the Widan.
Instead, he knelt stiffly-and utterly formally-at the feet of Ser Amando. A man, Alessandro thought, of worth.
In his hands, he held a round, unmarked medallion. Wood, pale, unadorned, it waited the cut of two swords.
And those cuts, either of them, would never be made if the Widan continued his prattle.
The Lady, thought Alessandro, knew mercy in her fashion. Time was indeed of the essence. He lifted his gaze to the West.
The Torrean of Manelo was not bounded by the Deepings, the ancient name for the Old Forest. Its superst.i.tions, its stories, were therefore no part of Manelan culture, Manelan knowledge. It was a forest; and like other forests, a matter of fact, of nature.
I am committed, he thought.
"How simple could this Serra be, to escape the Tor Leonne itself? I tell you, she is a threat."
"And I," Ser Amando said, gaining inches as he at last unveiled the anger that any Tor would feel under such circ.u.mstances, "tell you, Widan, that there are matters that must be decided before we leave Damar. If you cannot offer advice that does not conform to the negotiations I have chosen, leave the dais."
For just a moment, the Widan grew in height, and the height he gained by the simple expedience of shifting posture was both remarkable and unsettling. His shoulders were broad, if slender, his arms long. He wore no sword, which was unusual, and no armor save for his robes and the distant rise of water in the hollowed bed of the Adane.
And then he smiled.
"As you wish, Tor"agnate. But time is of the essence." He turned to face Alessandro. "Strange things live in the edges of the Deepings," he said, voice cool. "And on a night such as this, the forest cannot contain them all. Speak quickly, Tor"agar."
"Widan."
He turned, bowed stiffly, and left the dais.
But as he did, the waters stilled. They stood now, clear as poor gla.s.s, the thunder in their movement silenced.
Beyond them, Alessandro could suddenly see the distorted figures the men of Clemente made, viewed through water defiled by strange magic.
Worse, he could hear their sudden shouts. They had turned their attention-and their formation-from the West of Damar; they were running now, some horsed and some on foot, as if they prepared for battle.
As if it were already upon them.
Ser Alessandro stiffened. The bridges were gone, and even had they not been, the men of Manelo now stood between himself and the men who followed his command, even to their own deaths.
He turned his gaze upon Ser Amando. The Tor"agnate was not as impa.s.sive as he should have been; his brows rose faintly in surprise, and his lips curved in frown.
"Widan!"